Judges applaud African states’ efforts in hosting refugees, suggest much work remains to be done

9 December 2022 · Carmel Rickard

At a recent meeting in Arusha, Tanzania, the Africa Chapter of the International Association of Refugee and Migration Judges (IARMJ) applauded the solidarity and efforts of many African states in hosting refugees. Their work in finding collective solutions for the situation of refugees, sometimes under the auspices of the African Union, was also appreciated. The judges have now issued a formal declaration, covering a wide range of issues related to refugees, asylum-seekers and stateless people.

Read Arusha Declaration in full

At its latest meeting in Arusha, the African Chapter of the International Association of Refugee and Migration Judges (IARMJ) urged African states, not yet part to key conventions and protocols relating to the status of refugees and specific refugee problems in Africa, to accede to these instruments.

They also urged that states incorporate all international standards relating to the protection of refugees into their national legislation ‘to ensure that refugees and asylum-seekers can effectively enjoy all the civil, economic and socio-cultural rights’ to which they are entitled, in their country of asylum.

The judges further urged African states to monitor and strengthen border management procedures to prevent refoulement (the forced return of refugees or asylum seekers to a country where they are liable to persecution). States should address concerns about inconsistent access to asylum and should expand and strengthen ‘protection-sensitive entry systems in their border management policies’, in order to enhance identification and referral of asylum-seekers to the responsible authorities.

Integrity

They expressed concern that while the right to seek and obtain asylum was only effective if African states had asylum systems that are ‘consistently accessible, fair, efficient, adaptable and which have integrity’, some African states were lacking in this regard.

The declaration underscores the role of the UN High Commission on Refugees’ (UNHCR) mandate on international protection and the part it played to ensure the promotion and supervision of refugee protection. In the light of the important role played by UNHCR, African states should grant the UNHCR and its partners access to monitor borders, entry points and other locations where would-be asylum seekers could make claims. African states should welcome UNHCR support to strengthen asylum systems, the declaration says.

Refugee law reform, the strengthening of asylum systems, and the social and economic inclusion of economic refugees in host countries should all be implemented, says IARMJ.

JIFA

The organisation also applauded the establishment of a Centre for Excellence via a tri-partite agreement between the Judicial Institute for Africa (JIA), the African Chapter of IARMJ and the UNHCR. The purpose of the centre is to deliver international refugee and asylum law training programmes to judicial officers, legal practitioners, asylum and refugee decisions makers and academics.

In addition, the IARMJ also dealt with internal displacement, the right to a nationality and the eradication of statelessness and what could be done by African states in relation to these problems.

Carmel Rickard

About the author

Recent articles by Carmel Rickard

‘No justification for the unjustifiable’: Lesotho’s ombud slams grand-scale torture, assault in Maseru prison

22 March 2024
Carmel Rickard

Lesotho’s national ombud, Tlotliso Angelina Polaki, has issued a scathing report on massive-scale torture and assaults that took place in Maseru’s central correctional institution during December 2023, leaving about 95% of the inmates of the prison injured, one dead and one who is now wheelchair-bound and will never walk again.

Major court decision on image rights benefits Ugandan soccer players

21 March 2024
Carmel Rickard

Members of Uganda’s national soccer team from the period around 2007/8 have just been awarded a payout against MTN Uganda by the commercial court. The telecom giant had a year-long contract with Proline, the players’ originating development soccer club, allowing it to use the players’ images for advertising. But MTN had continued to use their images even after that contract expired on the basis that it had a sponsorship agreement with Fufa, soccer’s governing body in Uganda. The players then challenged MTN in court, through Proline, and have now won a significant damages award. But the judgment exposed some serious flaws in the way that Fufa has approached the question of using the image rights of its senior players, and the court commented that this is a ‘case study’ for why Fufa needs to sort out its contractual arrangements with senior players.

Executive interference in Ugandan court decisions continues – this time by the justice minister

21 March 2024
Carmel Rickard

Uganda’s minister of justice, Norbert Mao, has taken a leaf straight from the book of the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni. This week, the minister wrote to the principal judge of the Ugandan high court, asking that the judge directly intervene in a matter that has been brought to his attention by an MP on behalf of a constituent. Mao asked for the ‘immediate administrative intervention’ in the matter by the principal judge. Earlier this year, Museveni wrote a similar letter to the chief justice of Uganda, also requesting intervention in a matter, and the CJ later indicated that this was not the first time it had happened.

Is rape by family members treated too lightly by the law?

19 March 2024
Carmel Rickard

The high court has sent the case of a Malawian teenager, charged with raping his 89-year-old grandmother, back to the magistrate’s court for a possible re-trial because the court had wrongly prosecuted a case of rape instead of incest. If convicted in a re-trial, however, Malawi’s incest law could see the accused sentenced to a mere five years. Malawi’s penal code provides for a significant difference between the sentence to be imposed when a man rapes a close family member, and in a case where the two are not related. When they are unrelated, the code provides that a rape offender ‘shall be liable to be punished with death or with imprisonment for life’ (However, Malawi has had what amounts to a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty since 1992.) By contrast, ‘incest by males’, is categorised in the code as a ‘felony’, and anyone convicted ‘shall be liable for imprisonment for five years’. There is an exception: if it is proved ‘that the female person is under the age of 16, the offender shall be liable to imprisonment for life’.

Prominent SA advocates lose battle over conviction in Namibian courts for working without a permit, misleading immigration officials

6 March 2024
Carmel Rickard

Two prominent South African advocates have just lost their last hope of squashing their convictions in the Namibian courts. Johannesburg advocates, Mike Hellens SC and Dawie Joubert SC, had been found guilty on two counts, first, working as legal practitioners without an employment permit, and second, giving false or misleading information to immigration officers when they entered the country in 2019. Though they had gone to Namibia to appear in court in a bail application, they told the immigration officials they were there for a ‘visit’ and for a ‘meeting’. Both appealed against their conviction but they had also asked for a judicial review of the decision. In the high court they lost their appeal but won on the review. The outcome in both matters were taken to the apex supreme court for a final word. In December 2023, they lost their appeal at the supreme court. What would that same court say when the state appealed against the review finding? The supreme court has now given its answer: it found the review, that had favoured Hellens and Joubert, was wrongly decided, and set it aside, awarding costs against the two advocates in both the high court and the supreme court.